Into Dust
by Lila2
Summary: She's not quite alive and he's not quite dead, and they're not quite so different.


**Title:** "Into Dust"

**Author:** Lila

**Rating:** R

**Character/Pairing: **Dean/Lenore

**Spoiler:** "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things"

**Length:** one-shot

**Summary:** She's not quite alive and he's not quite dead, and they're not quite so different.

**Author's Note:** Little plot bunnies were at work while I was supposed to be doing a huge project, but because I loved the revelations in the closing scenes of CSPwDT, a fic had to become of them. I'm particularly intrigued by the idea of Dean coming back "wrong," and it's something I wanted to explore here. I'm not sure what I think of this, but it had to be written and this is what happened. Title and quotes courtesy of Mazzy Star. I hope you enjoy.

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**I. Still falling, breathless and on again. **

She shows up halfway to Wisconsin, and Dean is alone in the room while Sam is out buying food, real food, because he'd claimed that if he had to eat another breakfast burrito from 7-Eleven his arteries might finally give out and explode. Dean said nothing while Sam joked about catching E-coli from leafy green things, and popped open another bottle of beer. He'd finished it before Sam had his jacket on, and the slide of the zipper competed with the bottle top pinging against the floor. Sam had said nothing, and not because of the fading bruise still painting the skin of his jaw, but because there was truly nothing left to say, nothing to make it alright again. Dean needed time and Sam didn't need another sucker punch to the jaw, so he chose to leave it alone. He wasn't okay with the decision, but he didn't have a choice. He was a Winchester – he was used to the feeling.

"Try and be conscious when I get back, okay?" Sam said on his way out, and Dean watched the way the dingy motel light had picked out the gold in his brother's hair, the way it glowed around his face like a flimsy halo. The sainted one, the chosen one, the one who hadn't taken the one family tie they had left. "Dean," Sam pressed when he hadn't responded. "I'm serious."

"Sammy, leave it alone."

Sam's hands paused on the collar of his jacket, and he let out the breath he'd been holding because his brother was finally speaking to him. "Dean, I'm worried about you. You don't eat, you don't sleep…" His eyes traveled to the half-empty bottle of beer Dean was tilting between his lips. "You can't live off booze."

Dean closed his eyes and swallowed, hard. "Maybe I shouldn't live at all."

Sam sighed, because he was tired of this conversation, and because he didn't have the answers he so desperately wanted to provide. "Dean," he started but his brother laughed bitterly and the sound was ugly and mean.

"What's wrong college boy? Can't solve the equation for once? All those straight-As gone to waste?" His voice was steady despite all the beer he'd drunk and the food he'd refused to eat. When he stood up to face his brother, there was nothing but calm assurance in his movements, stability in his step.

Sam didn't want to fight, because his mom was dead and Jess was dead and his father was dead and his brother was all he has left. Dean had spent his entire life taking care of him – it was his turn to do the same. "Promise me you'll eat something real when I get back? We have a job to do, Dean. You need to keep your strength up."

Dean looked up and met his eyes and they were cold and dark in the dim light as the bottle broke apart in his palm. There was blood there, and it oozed between Dean's fingers and dripped slowly onto the broken glass, and Sam turned away because he couldn't see his brother and blood without remembering the sick satisfaction in Dean's eyes and the blood painting his face a grisly red and the bloodlust blinking in his eyes. He couldn't, he couldn't go there, so he opened the door and let the cool night air wash away the memories and the pain and the brother he wasn't ready to face. "Promise me," he said to his brother. "Promise me you'll let me help you when I get back."

Dean waved him away with a flip of his hand and turned back to watching the blood slide down his wrist. It was warm and sticky against his skin, and when he closed his eyes he could feel it trickling out of the gash in his hand to the steady rhythm of his pulse. He opened his eyes and watched his brother's retreating form, the parking lot lights picking out the gold in his hair and glowing like a flimsy halo.

He didn't promise his brother anything. He didn't say anything at all.

---

**II. A round broken in two.**

The blood is still drying on the skin of his palm, and it leaves a mark when his fingers close around the doorknob and pull the steel door open. He watches the way it catches in the light, how the moonbeams make it glow pulsing and alive even as it's darkening and cracking against the cool metal of the knob. She watches it too, and her shoulders draw a little tighter as she presses a pale hand against the green paint and pushes the door way open so he has to see her, all of her, what's left of her.

It's a cold night and he's wearing just a thermal and the air feels good against his heated skin. He's been drinking, drinking for days, and he might not feel the affects of the alcohol running as freely through the veins as his blood, but it still brings a pale pink flush to his cheeks. He can't see his own reflection, but he knows it's there, the cast to his skin that's as ruddy red as a newborn drawing its first breath.

She's pale, so pale she practically blends into the moonlight that defines her kind. There's a web of fading bruises and barely healed cuts mapped across the pale skin of her face, but her eyes are still two pools of bottomless black, and when he looks into them he sees nothing there. She's skinnier than the last time he saw her, and her dark hair falls lankly around her transparent face and her jeans are hanging off her hips where they clung to her curves only a few weeks back. She's hungry and she's suffering and he can't quite bring himself to care. She's not a human; she's not a person; she's just a thing, even if she looks more alive than the reflection he avoids in the mirror every morning. He just stares at her, because no matter what went down in Red Lodge he sure as hell doesn't trust her, and she stares back because she's not sure what to expect from the brother who only reluctantly saved her life.

"Is Sam here?" she finally says and pushes a lock of limp dark hair up the slope of her cheek, hiding a gash marring her otherwise smooth skin. He breathes out deeply and the air gushes white and crisp from between his lips. When she speaks, her mouth moves and the air remains clear and dark and nothing of importance slips out with the words.

"What do you want with him?" he demands, because it doesn't matter how strained things are with Sam, because he's the big brother and she's the living dead and keeping Sammy safe comes first. It's always come first, even when it means dying for it. He can still feel the blood leaking through the closed fingers of his fist, and it's still warm and wet as it keeps pouring out of him and he keeps on living.

"We heard about your car being spotted up here, and I wanted to come by and say thank you. I – we – owe Sam our lives." She's still staring at him, right at him, bottomless black eyes drilling into his, like she can see the darkness inside him that matches hers.

He doesn't remind her that he also had a hand in preserving her non-existence, because he doesn't care. Sammy might have had a soft spot for her kind, but it doesn't make whatever she is any less wrong. "You're not alive," he reminds her. "I'll give Sam your message." He moves to close the door, but she's stronger than he expected and slams a boot against the doorjamb before he can get it all the way closed. She's still looking at him, right at him, and even in the feeble motel light he can't see a single spark in her eyes.

"You saved us too," she says and tugs with her boot, forcing the door open a few inches. She's still too skinny and she looks like she survived World War III, but she's surprisingly strong and she manages to slip inside the room. "Thank you," she whispers and her breath is like ice against his skin and her lips are even colder as they press feather light against his cheek.

He doesn't notice the chill.

---

**III. I could feel myself growing colder.**

Under the layers of leather and denim she's still thinner than he first thought and for a moment he worries he might break her if he presses hard enough because he can practically circle one thigh with his hand. Her skin is even paler against the white motel sheets and she seems to blend into them, all long limbs and dark tangled hair and twin pools of opaque black staring up at him from between bruised cheeks. He's afraid he'll break her until he remembers she can't break because she can't die because she's not living.

He's not sure how it happened, and he'd like to chalk it up to being Dean Winchester and only having one thought on his mind, but he knows it's not that simple. She's not quite alive and he's not quite dead, and they're not quite so different. Sammy was the one to save her, but Sammy isn't the one who gets her, because Sammy doesn't know what it's like to be alive but no longer living. He can smell the moonlight in her hair and see the sacrifices she's made in her ruined face, and when she starts to pull away his fingers tangle in her hair, and when he pulls her mouth to his it's like tasting himself.

Her lips are an arctic freeze and her tongue is a sliver of ice when he pushes them open and his slips his into her mouth. He can feel the cold against his teeth and they rattle against hers, and he licks over them and they're smooth and flat and there's only one set. He cups her face in his hands as he pushes her back towards the bed, and his bloody palm leaves a smear of crimson across her cheek like grisly war paint. He keeps his eyes locked on hers and his mouth seals her closed, and a light brightens deep in the empty blackness of her eyes as the line of his blood trickles into her mouth. He feels a second set of teeth prick his tongue, and the cold iciness of her mouth sparks with the coppery tang of his blood and washes away the last vestiges of the beer. He can feel himself, warm and wet, flowing between them and the light brightens and her eyes flash.

She falls back on the bed and pulls him down with her and his blood seeps between their lips and trickles down their chins and she arches up against him as his fingers scrape the hem of her shirt up the scarred skin of her stomach. Gordon has marked her for life and the scratches and gashes and cuts and slashes paint a macabre portrait over once pristine flesh, and he pulls away long enough to trail his mouth down her stomach, his blood dragging a smear of red across her skin. It blends into the raised line of healing marks, and he contemplates biting down harder, hard enough to break through her flesh and taste the dull coppery bitterness of her blood, and mark her as his. He wonders what it will be like, being reborn, and he thinks it might hurt or at least feel weird, but he's been through it once so he can go through it again and this time no one he loves will have to die. She bites down hard, harder, and her teeth sink through the flesh of his lip and the blood flows freely, gushing out of him while he keeps on living.

She arches again, growls, thrashes, and tears at his clothes. She's all around him in a blanket of cold, and her legs wrap around his bare hips and her arms encircle his back. Her skin is softer than he predicted, and smoother, and the healing cuts across her abdomen rub roughly against his stomach and he's never been with an imperfect woman before, but he's also never been with anyone like her. His blood is smeared across her mouth and her chin, and the light is shining brightly in her eyes as her teeth slide down over her lips and she smiles, revealing bloodstained teeth. His blood, flowing in her veins as surely as his own, keeping him warm and keeping her alive.

"I'm ready," she whispers and he looks into the bottomless pits of her eyes and sees himself reflected, the blood smeared across the stubble of his chin and the way his lips draw back to bare his teeth. There's only one set, but the effect is the same, because when he looks at himself there's no light in his eyes.

The cold spears through him when he pushes inside her and he feels it deep in his gut, glazing his insides and coating him in ice. She cries out and arches up, and her breasts push against his chest, and he can feel every inch of her pressed up against every inch of him. His heart thuds angrily in his chest and hammers against the deadness in hers, and his fingers wrap around the fragile bones of her wrist, thumbs pausing over the silent stillness under their pads.

She isn't alive, but from the way she's pulsing around him she's not dead either. He knows he isn't dead, because his breath hisses out from between parted lips and fans across her cheeks, but he sinks in deeper and his eyes close and his father flashes against his eyelids, smiling and alive, and he can taste the funeral ash and see the heat searing his skin and feel the electricity shoot through him when the deal was made and his eyes opened to see the world again, and he's not sure he's entirely alive.

---

**IV. I could feel myself under your fate.**

Her teeth sink into the muscle of his shoulder as he moves, and it he doesn't feel the pain against the icy numbness of her skin melting into his, just the red-hot trickle of blood staining the clean, white sheets. He can see her face in the dim light and her eyes seem to roll back in her head as she clamps down harder, hard enough to hurt, but he doesn't cry out, doesn't make a sound, just pulls her legs up to wrap around his waist and her open her wider as her teeth sink deeper under the slick slide his blood.

It feels good, right, as his teeth lock around the smooth skin of her breast and bit down a little, just a little, but hard enough for her to notice. She pulls back and her face is coated with his blood and he can feel it sliding scalding hot down the chilly length of his back, and she pushes him, hands pressed tight against his chest, and shudders as his heartbeat flutters against her palm. "No, Dean, no," she whispers. "Not you." Her palm flattens over his heart and she shudders again, pulls him closer and his heart beats against her silent chest.

"Taste this," she says and kisses him to keep him from trying it again, and his mouth fills with his own blood. He swallows, because he has to, and he can taste himself coating the walls of his throat and clogging his airway, and he gags because there's nothing normal or comforting about it. It doesn't feel right, the way it fills the contours of his mouth, and he chokes on it, taking gasping breaths that spray droplets of blood across the planes of her face. She smiles and shudders beneath him and she tightens around him, his blood flowing to all the right places as she arches up and nearly breaks in half in his arms, and when he sees red pushing against the walls of his eyelids it's only living, breathing life.

They come down slowly and their skin sticks together from a glue of pink-tinged sweat. His head rests on her chest and his breath keens from between his lips and his heartbeat thuds in his ears against the silent wall of her breasts. He opens his mouth and feels the blood congealing around his teeth, and the taste of it makes him want to throw up. There's a bottle of scotch on the nightstand and he tilts it between his lips, and it feels warm and tight going down and burns a little, right against his heart.

He offers some to her, but she declines and even laughs a little. "What?" he asks, and takes another sip, relishes the burn.

"I know I shouldn't pass up good whiskey, but it's not for me. You enjoy it." He pulls away and turns his head to inspect the bite on his shoulder. There are two sets of teeth marks and it's still bleeding a little. She sits up behind him and drags the icy length of her tongue to lap up the remaining drops. He shivers at her touch, and turns to catch her bloody smile. "This is more my speed."

She throws back the covers and starts to look for her clothes, a pale shadow of a woman in the feeble light. He pulls on his boxers and watches her, sipping the whiskey, feeling a little warmer with each burning pull. Under the layers of denim and leather she looks bigger, tougher than she really is, and he can believe that she's walked the earth for centuries while he's struggling to get through half of one. She turns to look at him and the light is gone from her eyes, even as she trails a finger down the ripped skin of his shoulder.

He catches her wrist between his fingers and prods, but nothing pulses against them. "Why?" he finally asks. "Why did you stop me?"

She watches him for a moment, eyes locking on the heartbeat railing against his temple, and takes his wrist in her hand, fingers playing over the thudding pulse. "You didn't know what you were asking, Dean. You're not like us."

He feels the lightening hot flash of the turn as her fingers press into his wrist hard enough to hurt and they flutter against the bones poking under the skin. Tessa's words ring in his eyes, "It's your lucky day, kid," and it might have been his lucky day, but it's not a lucky life. "I shouldn't have come back," he says. "I should have stayed dead."

There's a smile on her face, the kind he remembers his mother wearing, and she shakes her head as if to say _kids these days_. "Maybe you shouldn't have come back," she says, and her voice is soothing, calm, reassuring. She takes his hand and presses it against her breast and there's nothing there. "But you're not like us. We came back too, but we don't get to live." She nuzzles closer and her skin sizzles when it stretches across his. "You do good things with your life." She smiles, and licks her lips, and he can see his blood caked across her teeth. "You're not like us," she repeats and there's no pulsing beat in her wrist or breath easing out from between her lips and she's not entirely alive, but he puts down the bottle and kisses her one last time, her lips an icy burn playing against his, and he knows for sure he's not entirely dead either.

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**V. Two strangers turning into dust. **

Sam comes back and the room is a mess and blood is smeared across the sheets Dean is standing in front of the mirror studying an ugly gash marring his shoulder. Sam's hand pauses on the doorknob and he pulls back to stare at the dried blood flaking off his hand, and shoots a questioning look at his brother.

"What?" Dean asks and twists around to try and swab at his shoulder.

Sam puts down the bag of groceries, and true to his word, there's something leafy and green peaking out of the paper sack. "Here, let me help you," he says and takes the washcloth out of his brother's hands, ignores the wince on Dean's face when he presses the whiskey soaked cloth against the cut. "What the hell were you doing?"

Dean won't meet his eyes in the mirror as Sam takes a close look at the mark on his shoulder, and his finger play along the edges of the wound. "Are these teeth marks? Dean, what is going on?" He lets the words hang in the air, and gives Dean's shoulder a little shove when he doesn't respond, and rather than suffer the torture any longer, Dean finally looks into his brother's eyes and his own are clear and flashing and full of life.

Their hair gleams in the dingy motel light, and a flimsy halo sprouts around their head as the light picks out the strands of gold. "We have a job to do," Dean says as Sam slides the cloth painfully over the brand on his shoulder. "I just needed a little reminder why."

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